Forum Post: One More Time

Lincoln Steffens, The Struggle for Self-Government, 1906. From the Dedication, pp. v-xxiii :

[There is] a revolution  . . . . .  which is going on everywhere in my country, in all the cities and in all the towns, in the rural districts, in the States, and in the United States.  And my people will not see it so. . . . . . They associate images of blood with that word, and violence, civil war, and great physical discomfort.  And we had such a revolution once. It was one hundred and thirty years ago. We, the American people, rose then . . . . . and we achieved then what your people hope to achieve now:  liberty, equality before the law, and self-government.  And . . . . . after our first, the bloody American revolution, a second, bloodless, nameless and slow, set in. After we had established government of the people, by the people, for the people, we went back to work. We let who would rule us, and somehow or other it has happened that those men have come into power who see in government  . . . . . a source, not of common, equal justice for all, but of special advantages for the few.  . . . . .  The United States of America stands for business, not men.  . . . . .  Our representative democracy represents not the people, but the protected business of a few of the people.  
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My advice to you is founded upon what I have seen among the American people .  . . . .  It may just be that they will turn around some day and take back their government and rule themselves. I  can see signs of the dawn of political intelligence here and there and now and then.